Kitap 1
How we should struggle with circumstances.
24
IT is circumstances (difficulties) which show what men are.So Ovid says, Trist. iv. 3, 79:— Quae latet inque bonis cessat non cognita rebus, Apparet virtus argniturque malis. Therefore when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. For what purpose? you may say. Why that you may become an Olympic conqueror; but it is not accomplished without sweat. In my opinion no man has had a more profitable difficulty than you have had, if you choose to make use of it as an athlete would deal with a young antagonist. We are now sending a scout to Rome;In the time of Domitian philosophers were banished from Rome and Italy by a Senatusconsultum (Sueton. Domitian, c. 10; Dion, 67, c. 13), and at that time Epictetus, as Gellius says (xv. 11), went from Rome to Nicopolis in Epirus, where he opened a school. We may suppose that Epictetus is here speaking of some person who had gone from Nicopolis to Rome to inquire about the state of affairs there under the cruel tyrant Domitian. (Schweighaeuser.) but no man sends a cowardly scout, who, if he only hears a noise and sees a shadow any where, comes running back in terror and reports that the enemy is close at hand. So now if you should come and tell us, Fearful is the state of affairs at Rome, terrible is death, terrible is exile; terrible is calumny; terrible is poverty; fly, my friends; the enemy is near—we shall answer, Be gone, prophesy for yourself; we have committed only one fault, that we sent such a scout.
